


All Tied Up

by Crux01



Category: Homeland
Genre: Coffee Table - Freeform, Dancing Quinn, F/M, Humour, Running Away, Sex, trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-07 12:14:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7714525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crux01/pseuds/Crux01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's season six and in a reversal of fortunes, Carrie has dancing Quinn exactly where she wants him, cuffed to the coffee table!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Viv and Elina who came up with the ideas, I just joined them together!

It was like drowning, dying slow. The life leaving his lungs with the last of his air. The darkness waiting, always waiting at the edge of his existence to claim him, to embrace him in its strong all encompassing arms. To finally let it go. And always at the last, as his conscious mind gave up and animal instinct took over, the frantic panic, the fear, the need to hold on coming from the very depths of him.

Endure, survive, live.... he had given up so many times.... but it pulled him back. 

It pulls him back now, bringing him from sweet, safe darkness to painful, clanging consciousness. Imploring him to be when he simply wants nothing but nothing.

Where the fuck is he? He feels constricted, captured. Body immobile, dead. Instinct screaming at him to open his eyes, get up, move but he has no energy, only the dying embers of the drugs seemed to be fizzing impotently in his bloodstream. Shit, what had he taken? Where had he been? But even that thought is quickly stifled; he doesn't really care.

There is a light. It is fucking bright, burning, blinding, a sun, deep into his retinas, setting off a thousand pinpricks of pain. He doesn't want to open his eyes. He doesn't want this.

His hindbrain, that has saved him so many times in the past, is cajoling him to action. Think, fucking think! 

But it is all just too hard.

He remembers having fun, being loose, spaced out, not in control, dancing, cutting some shapes.... well that is probably an optimistic description. He remembers moving on the dance floor, stumbling, face stuffed into that blonde's hair, what was her name again? Justine that was it. Face in her hair, smelt of sweat and cheap perfume but if she hadn't been so faded and washed out, she had the look of...... Stop, don't go there.

He hears voices, whispering, too far away to catch the words and then a giggle. A kid?

No, no kids. His life has no room for any kids, never will. 

Is he in hospital again, maybe? Cos he is good at hospitals, although he hates them, he knows the score, knows when to smile for the therapists, act normal for the doctors, flirt with the nurses, hightail it from the constant visitor who reveals feelings in him that he doesn't want to feel, who scares him with her promises of happiness. Oh yes, he is well practised in all the hospital arts.

His mouth tastes like a sewer, throat desert dry, he tries to swallow and makes a grating noise between a groan and a cough.

Somewhere a door bangs shut. Movement, he senses it, coming closer. Shit, he will have to open his eyes soon. Instinct trying to rouse him but conscious mind preferring the oblivion of not knowing.

"Quinn?" Familiar voice, freezing his bowels instantly running all the way up through his stomach like fingers of frost on a winter's morning. Recognition and fear warring inside him, screaming at him with equal strength. And again she says, "Quinn?"

Jesus, it cannot be. He longs once more, for the ocean of darkness he was previously afloat in, knows it has deserted him, left him washed up on her shore like a piece of discarded flotsam.

Very slowly, with resigned acceptance, he opens his eyes, blinking back the rush of tears. Tears only from the brightness, nothing more should be read into the wetness that streaks down his cheeks. Christ, he sniffs it all back, a lifetime of hurt pulled back up his nostrils, wishing it was as harmless as the coke that went up there the previous night.

"It seems I making a habit of saving your ass," she says dryly, crucifying him on her blunt, knowing stare.

He gulps, goes for nonchalant but only gets as far as spiteful. "What can I say, you're cheaper than a lawyer."

"Oh, not this time. This time nothing comes cheap!" She looks so good, so calm, so in control.....everything he isn't. Everything he has somehow lost along the way.

Spiteful turns to proudly indignant, ripping at his innards like a tightening wire, chasing away his weariness, his physical exhaustion, wakening the long dormant warrior within, making him fight. "The fuck? What business is it of yours what I do. What do you care?" He might be yelling.

Her face fades into disappointment. "Fuck you, Quinn, I read your letter. I know what's really going on inside your head beyond the fucked up facade you hide behind."

Disbelief. Soul shrinking humiliation. Heart rate increasing until it bangs in his ears. Trying to keep calm. Dread growing. "Really, Carrie?"

She nods, triumphant. "All of it."

Panic rising from deep inside, volcanic and unruly. Need to get away. He tries to get up from the couch, tries to lift his arms. It's then that he understands the feeling of constriction that has lurked within him since he woke. His wrists are cuffed to the leg of a coffee table with plastic ties. No ordinary coffee table this, a cast iron motherfucker with a big slab of marble on top. Even at peak fitness he would have had difficulty moving it, in current circumstances he hasn't a hope.

"Carrie, what the fuck! Untie me!" he snarls, lifting his hands in impotent protest.

She looks down at him. "I had to stop you from running away again."

"I did not run away!"

"Yeah, right. Fucking tactical withdrawal! Whatever, it involved you removing yourself from my presence. It felt like running away to me."

He shakes his head, tries to pull his hands apart. Stops himself. Looks her straight in the eye. Reaches for his swagger. "Bit ostentatious isn't it?"

"I needed something heavy. I like it." She hesitates. "It was a prenuptial present."

Quinn's eyebrows go so high he can feel the skin stretching. "A what?"

"From Otto." She holds his stare challengingly. "I ditched him but kept the table. Who knew it would come in so handy when I needed to keep an ex black ops assassin from running away again?"

The banging in his head is back, this time with the intensity of a jackhammer, thundering right into his brain, making his eyes water even more. The world going hazy and indistinct, stomach acid burning at the back of his throat. "I feel sick." His voice sounds weak, even to him.

"Quick, head between your knees!" She is all command and control now.

"I can't, I'm cuffed to your fucking Brandenburg Gate of a coffee table remember!"

"I'll get a bucket."

He snorts ruefully, his hope she would untie him quickly quashed. "Don't bother the feeling's past. How did I get here?"

"Dar had his men dump you here last night. You were well out of it."

"They drugged me?"

Disbelief bright in her eyes. "I think you did that to yourself. Well, you and your female 'friends'!"

"Who?"

"Let's just say that last night you kept yelling, Justine, close the damn curtains it's too fucking bright in here and covering your head with a pillow!"

Ignore the cutting remark, the fake white trash accent and shrieky voice, but most of all ignore the unnamed emotion that drips from it. Ignore it all. Trying to keep his head above water, biting back his embarrassment, his mortification, he changes the subject. "Dar? What did he say?"

"He said to dry you out and not let you get away until he has time to talk to you. He supplied the plastic ties!"

Angry impotence shoots through him. "Fucking hell!"

Her stare remains unforgiving, brim full of cold caring. "You deserve this Quinn. You gave up the moral high ground and then some, every time you left me and ran away."

"I did not run away! I needed some time, some space. Being cooped up in that hospital sent me...." Stop, don't go there. Just a small admission to deflect from the more dangerous exposure. "I didn't cope very well."

She's not letting go, a terrier with the bone gripped masterfully between her teeth. "Oh yeah, some space! Sex and drugs and rock and roll get you far enough away from me, did they?" She shakes her head, dignified outrage defining her. "You can't go around embarrassing the Agency like that. You are a liability and apparently your dancing is awful too! I'm worried you're going to get yourself hurt. Dar is too!"

He shakes his cuffed hands at her, hoping for pleading but suspecting he gets to only pathetic. "Please Carrie, untie me. I let you go when I had you in a similar position in Berlin." Trying to make his eyes wide, imploring, ignoring the pain the extra light brings, the urge to blink.

"Yes, you did," she agrees. "But I'm not so stupid. I have you exactly where I want you."

"Fuck me!" he really is yelling now. Anger returns hot and torrid spurting through his veins. He pulls ineffectively at his bounds, sweat beads along his forehead and his sharp, pale features twist in frustration.

She just smiles sweetly. "All in good time my sweet, defenceless beautiful, Quinn. All in good time!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The imaginations of Viv and Elina doing all the work again....I'm just riding on their coat tails!

"Peace offering?"

Quinn opens his eyes, crusty and itching. The rest of his body screams in dismay, twisted tendons and crushed muscles from his confined and uncomfortable night on the couch; still cuffed to the fucking horrendous monstrosity of a coffee table. He did, before he passed out however, have chance to make certain investigations about said piece of furniture and he now suspects it is not as it seems.

Carrie stands in front of him, proffering a coffee cup, eyes sympathetic and forgiving. The strong smell of the roasted beans flares his nostrils, causes his mouth to water in anticipation of a caffeine hit; he wants it badly.

Sore and hurting, he rejects her warmth along with the coffee. "I need a piss," he mutters irritably.

"I'll get a bottle."

"Fuck Carrie, I am not pissing into a bottle in front of you."

"What do you black ops boys do in such a state, then?" she teases. "You got a built in catheter or something? Maybe just tie a knot in it like mere mortals?"

He ignores her weak humour, goes for restrained sensible which is fucking hard considering his situation. "Be reasonable, you cannot keep me here indefinitely." His desperation is so intense he can taste it but he's vainly hoping she can't sense it.

With impressive timing, the doorbell rings. She smiles. "Maybe I won't need to." She moves through to the hallway, door opens, another familiar voice, Quinn pulls at his bonds as his consternation grows. The two people on the planet he hates the fucking most, come to torment him further. They are not fucking air kissing surely? But it sure sounds that way. He feels nauseous at the thought.

Dar enters the room, immaculate in roll neck sweater and checked jacket. Quinn suddenly becomes aware of his own crumpled clothes, ruffled hair and shadowy whiskers. He feels dirty, inadequate, stupid, not to mention excruciatingly embarrassed. He impotently pulls at his bonds but decides to wait. He has nothing further to lose.

The old warhorse plonks the large brown paper bag, smeared with grease stains, he carries on the coffee table. "Breakfast," he announces smugly and turns his gaze to Quinn for the first time.

"Well, well, well and don't you look just peachy?" Dar purrs, eyes flashing with mirth. "All wide eyed and crazy? Got to hand it to Carrie, she knows how to treat her men!" Dar turns to her. "I really thought you would have let him go by now. I'm impressed by your fortitude."

Carrie shrugs, showing no remorse whatsoever. She reaches for the breakfast bag. "I'll get plates," she murmurs and moves off toward the kitchen.

Angry and bitter shame sweeps through Quinn like a tidal wave. "Unfucking tie me!" he hisses.

"Not my call," Dar's smile freezes on his lips, all witticism gone, he is suddenly deadly serious. He perches on the arm of the sofa. "You need to get your shit together, Peter, or else..."

Quinn looks away, nostrils quivering, snorts in frustration. "I know, I know, you've threatened me with retraining before, remember?" The fury is burning within him, demanding action, he yanks at the cuffs again. Succeeds in nothing except causing a shooting pain to run up through his wrists. "What am I, fucking public enemy number one or something? You think I'm going to spill all your precious secrets?" He's growling like an animal, all basic instincts and indiscipline. 

Fuck, Dar is not wrong; he does need to get it together and fast.

Dar stays out of his reach, cold smile back, fuelled by the perverse pleasure he is taking in baiting the chained bear. "You wouldn't be the first."

"Why can't you understand; I don't give a shit." Quinn's violent energy now channels itself into a crazed, uncharacteristic laugh, "Do you think you can do anything worse to me than what I've already been through?"

Dar stares at him for a long time, the silence is full of the tense history of the pair, and then he sighs. "It has been unfortunate."

"Unfortunate! Is that what you fucking call it?"

"Really, Peter, enough of the drama." Dar screws up his face in distaste. "Decamping from the Vets Hospital without so much as a word. Prostitutes, drugs!" He shakes his head, all disappointed father. "I taught you better than this."

Carrie returns, donuts and bagels piled on two plates, she puts them on the coffee table and then stands, arms folded, shifting her weight from foot to foot, biting her lip nervously. 

Quinn looks at the food, incredulous. "Un-fucking believable!" he snorts, rattling his bonds.

"Well, I'm glad we had chance to have this conversation," Dar's supercilious smile returns. "I think you understand me now, Peter." He reaches forward, takes a donut. "I need to get on. Treat him gently, my dear, he has been through a lot." At the door he turns back, "And by the way, Peter, once a scalp hunter always a scalp hunter, you know that. You can't run away from me!"

"I did not run away!"

Dar's disbelieving chuckle is humourless as he deftly takes a bite of his donut. "I'll be in touch!" he promises through the sugary crumbs that sparkle on his upper lip.

Quinn's stomach lurches and he bites back the bile that it throws up his throat. The fury clutches at him causing his vision to blur and the world rocks crazily before his eyes. The anger in him, molten and hot, builds. It starts in the depths of his bowels and rolls up through him, gathering strength like a tropical storm on its way to hurricane. Drawing on control strategies that were beaten into him long ago, he harnesses it, commands it, as he was taught, turns it to power. Earlier weakness forgotten, his muscles ripple, buttocks clench, neck bulges. 

Carrie stares at him, her tongue suddenly too big for her mouth, she licks her lips, ridiculously aroused. "Jesus, Quinn," she murmurs. "You're turning into the Incredible Hulk except not green!"

As if to confirm her analysis, he lets out an inhuman growl as he uses the energy of his fiery fury to lift the coffee table, surprisingly maneuverable as he suspected it would be, looks can be oh so deceiving, and then smashes it downwards with wondrous relief on to the floor. Bagels, donuts and plates fly across the room, their smashing landings adding to the overall mayhem. The table shatters with a thunderous crack, it's hollow, badly-made innards spewing forth like the intestines of a starving, eviscerated man.

"Quinn! What the fuck?!" Carrie's voice sounds strange, tight and forced, even a little scared.

He pulls apart his wrists, plastic ties snap, triumphantly freeing himself at last. Ice blue eyes surveying the debris of the coffee table sparkle with irrepressible glee. "Not so Brandenburg. Cheap, flashy, tacky, and superficial," he mutters nonchalantly. And can't resist adding, "Just like your boyfriend, I guess!"

Carrie shakes her head, as if waking from a dream. She licks her lips, eyes twinkling with an emotion that Quinn recognises all too well. Reaching for her composure, as she runs her hand through her hair, she manages to snap out, "He's not my boyfriend, I told you I turned him down. That position remains vacant!"

Quinn snorts dismissively and heads towards the door. Carrie moves quicker, puts her slight body between him and his exit. He means to leave, he saw the unfettered lust in her eye, he knows it can only end badly. He wants none of it and yet.....

"Running away again?" She challenges him with every fibre of her being, ready to fight like a she-wolf, afraid, embittered, stirred.

"Get out of my way," he spits, impatient, clinging to his fraying control, his resistance dripping away with every second he stays.

"You can't go." Carrie persists.

And he, appearing equally unmovable says, "I can take care of myself."

"Obviously, you're doing really well so far!" she scoffs.

"Get out of my way, Carrie," he repeats threateningly.

But she will not move. They stand inches apart, anger and frustration sparking between them like lightening across a velvet summer night sky. They glare at each other both resolute, intractable, stubborn. Breathing hard, ready for battle, neither prepared to budge an inch. 

The moment stretches out before them, more significant that any they have previously shared, full of infinite possibilities, they totter on the edge of the deep chasm they have so painfully worked their way towards since the day they first met.

Finally patience exhausted, Carrie plunges in. She yells, "You selfish asshole, if you want your fucking darkness so much, then go, but don't pretend like you're doing it for me." All civilised control lost she raises her hand, about to slap him and he instinctively grabs her wrist, stops the motion, pulls her closer. She gasps at the sudden painful tightness of his touch, but her anger dissipates; dim morning fog lost with the first shaft of sunrise. 

A heartbreaking sob shudders through her. "I need you! Can't you fucking see that?" she whispers, suddenly meek and fearful, all fight gone. 

He hesitates, caught by the wanting in her eye, speared by her vulnerability, her honesty. He never wanted to hurt her, even when the righteous anger roared, pure and powerful, in his veins. He still doesn't but he knows he will, already has, possibly irrevocably. Her chin is poised in that moment before it wobbles, her eyes lowered, tears pooling at their corners. "But this is the last time," she forces herself to carry on. "The last time you run off. I won't let you back, not again. This is goodbye." Her voice breaks and she begins to sob piteously.

He pulls her closer, finally accepting the inevitable; there is no where to run, the achingly frightening chasm yawns in front of him, beckoning him on, daring him, threatening to engulf him. He envelopes her in the strongest arms she has ever known. He lowers his head, whispers, "I'm sorry," into her hair, rests his whiskery chin on her head. The moment of peace before the coming fall. She mewls softly like a kitten, from somewhere deep in her throat, sobs still shiver through her but slowing. The hug is long and heartfelt, and he muzzles her gently, seemingly relaxed but she feels the electricity thrumming through him, buzzing with expectation, building the wattage to dangerous levels as he pushes himself over the edge.

She is thrilled not surprised when he thrusts her against the wall and then he kisses her heatedly, for long sloppy minutes, frantically pressing his lips against hers, licking, gently biting, not so gently biting and she squirms in his arms, her breath coming in short little gasps. Suddenly his hands tug at her blouse so that it slides from her shoulders, revealing a creamy white breast with a pale pink nipple. His mouth finds it instantly, his tongue swirling around the little nub of flesh as Carrie arches her back and cries out at the sensation. "Oh!" she whimpers, her hands working into his wild hair, holding him closer as he continues to push her back into the uncompromising cool, hardness of the wall, suckling hungrily. 

He releases the pink bud only to move over to its twin and begin again earnestly, each moment increasing the throbbing down below until he thinks he will burst. He wants her to touch him so badly, and as if in answer to his silent pleas, her hands slide down from his hair and squeeze across his buttocks, beginning a hesitant search for the waist of his trousers and then diving inside.

The pulsing shaft that greets her is hard and hot and the touch of her fingers wrings a grunt from Quinn as he pushes into her grasp. He pulls away from her nipple for a moment to raise his head and capture her mouth again, moving his tongue in and out of her mouth as he thrusts forcefully into her hand, losing himself entirely. 

Carrie feels her own arousal soaking through her lacy underwear and she grinds her pelvis against his thigh where his leg has slipped between hers. He bends and kisses her, their mouths locking as their bodies move together, Carrie's hands reach up to crawl across his back, tickling along his spine and down his ribs. Quinn takes her weight effortlessly as he finds her hidden delights and his own rhythm, he plunges into her with long, even strokes. The sensations buzzing through him are overwhelming, the feel of her hot flesh around him, the sound of her gasping breaths in his ear, the way her nails trace lightly across his back and along his ass. He can't see, can't think, can't do anything except shove his cock into her as far and as hard and as fast as he can. 

Carrie is drowning in bliss. The feel of his thick shaft moving in and out of her is beyond anything she has ever experienced before and she throws back her head and moans with the sheer ecstasy. Past, future, everything else is forgotten. There is only this moment. She wants him inside her, as deep as he can go and she lifts her hips, lifts her legs, folding them around him, pulling him closer. "Harder," she hisses into his ear. "Harder."

He obeys, pounding into her now with all his might, sweat springing to the pores of his skin at the exertion, burying his dick in her with the single-minded goal of possessing her, finding a way for their bodies to merge into one. He feels it, the faint stirring in his balls and across his ass, and, compelled beyond mortal control, he can do nothing but push on. 

Carrie too, feels his rhythm change and she wraps her legs tighter around him and matches him, their hips bang together recklessly. Each of his strokes grinds him against her clitoris and she begins to feel the tension peaking, splitting her in two with perfect dichotomy; never wanting this feeling to end and praying for the furious orgasm that's building inside her; an ocean wave nearing the shore, to break with violent rapture. 

Ultimately, the pulsating, perfect crescendo is reached, the crashing descent is over, he hits the chasm bottom with an animal groan, exploding within her, his seed shooting out of him, flooding her womb at the instant her own muscles clutch and she lets out a long, inarticulate growl. 

"Carrie." He speaks her name in a long, drawn-out moan as he fills her, while she can only make little breathless cries. The two of them press their bodies tight, shuddering and whimpering, finally joined together, pressed into the wall, lying broken, spent, wasted, utterly destroyed, at the bottom of the abyss.

To fall and to rise again. 

Rousing himself, Quinn tenderly kisses her along her throat and then on the mouth and she answers him with her own, dragging her nails along his sweaty back, smiling against his lips at his shiver. He rocks gently back and forth, thinking only of her comfort and enjoyment, cherishing her, wanting this coupling to last as long as it has taken to get to this place, knowing it is only one delicate moment; the beautiful, doomed flight of a butterfly.

Finally, he pulls out and away, the sun moving behind a dark cloud, cool following warmth. He gently sets her legs on to the ground, they spasm uncontrollably but hold her weight, though she stumbles a little.

Doubt rushes through her, chasing the elegant bliss of the past minutes away. Her breath comes in gasps, the soft afterglow that bathes her is shattered as panic rips through her. Her eyes flash open, she blindly reaches out to grasp hold of him. "You're not fucking running away again," she says, voice raw, body drawn tight, lips ripened by his kisses but fear running deep into her very soul.

He draws back to her, closer, runs a finger lightly down her face, brushes the hair from her eyes. "No," he promises solemnly and then his mouth hitches into an almost smile. "Just thinking we could maybe continue this somewhere a little more romantic. My legs are killing me. I've had a rough couple of nights!"

She rolls her eyes, no longer fearful but the Carrie he recognises, he loves, once more. "And here was me hoping you'd take me dancing!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Elviira

To be honest he's woken up in some mighty strange predicaments, in some mighty strange places in his life and this one doesn't seem to be breaking the habit. 

He groans as the throbbing in his head beats a tattoo like a frenzied heavy rock drummer. Daring to open his eyes, he wishes he hadn't as the razored sun light, cutting in through the window, slices his retinas into a dislocated mess; he's getting no picture from there for a while. Mouth is dry, so dry, the desert would appear as wet as a monsoon rainstorm. He swallows, or tries to, but fails and a cough rushes up his gullet, forcing its way out. 

Fuck, that hurt. 

Every sinew in his body feels overworked, stretched, broken. The doctors have told him many times that he needs to slow down, that he can't do what he used to and in moments like this he remembers, he really does and wishes he was the sort of guy that took direction. In moments like this he agrees, it's just all the other times that he doesn't listen, ignores their advice, doesn't care.

So what happened last night? Forsaking his physical examination on the grounds that it hurts too much, he decides to try his mental facilities. But his mind mumbles incoherently, like its filled with wet wool and his thoughts cannot pass. All he can retrieve is a number of images on repeat, flickering across his mind with bilious regularity.

Nausea. Shit, that causes stomach acids to follow the cough up his throat and he's swallowing again. Forcing everything back down, into place, as if he was a healthy, real human being.

Breathing deeply, he tries again looking at those images. He sees blonde hair, hears groans. It felt good. Monica is blonde but it's not her, somebody else familiar .......holy fuck!

He didn't, did he? He couldn't have. The stuff that Clarice got must have been fucking A class to give hallucinations like this....so real.

He snorts, pushes the fantasy away, tries swallowing again. Easier but still hurting way too bad to try to open the eyes yet. His overcast, cram-packed mind returns back to those pictures....

Against a fucking wall? Oh come on! Now he really has lost his shit completely. To be able to see his wildest dreams in such perfect clarity. To be able, just for a moment, to imagine it happened.... he fucked Carrie Mathison against a wall in her own apartment and then he took her to bed and did it again, only more slowly, more intimately, making love not lust....

There, he thought it, now he tries to push it away, consign it back to the depths of his mind where he stores all such dreams, has done for years. But this time it's not going, it's staying, like it really happened.

Fuck, this is really weird.

He remembers a coffee table, zip ties, Dar Adal? He shudders, unnerved; this really is getting too fucked up for words.

He goes back to his physical examination; the pain is way easier to bear that the illusion, the thought that he might have....

So, moving on, he tries moving his legs, slow, one after the other. Nerves tingle a little and muscles moan but it's OK, he can deal with that. He moves on to his left arm, his problem child since the stroke, it moves a little, as much as he could expect to be honest, and is accompanied by the pain that always follows it around these days, deep, like its decided to stay in his very bone marrow, going nowhere fast. So he tries his right arm and that's where the anxiety starts. His right side should be OK, he should have full movement, alright maybe with the odd shiver and the odd shake but movement nevertheless. So why can he only move it a couple of inches and then it pulls up short?

He tries again. Same.

Fuck! 

He is gonna have to open his eyes to see and it is gonna hurt. Maybe he should just not bother. Just wait for Monica to come back, see if Clarice can get more of these fucking A drugs. But before he really knows it, his eyes have opened. No fucking control! He's blinking, squinting as a too bright watery scene smashes into his eyes. Gagging into his mouth, he swallows it back again, forces away the panic, the complete loss of control and tries to concentrate, to actually see what is around him.

It fades in and out but settles finally into too much pink.... pink bed, pink pillows, pink drapes, a fucking-honest-to-God pink dressing gown! He has to admit it's a subtle, classy use of the colour but still way too much. Well, he's not at Monica's obviously, even in the most imaginative uses of the word 'class', it cannot be used to describe there.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the dresser mirror at the bottom of the bed and wishes he hadn't! He looks worse than he feels, pale as porcelain, blue eyes too wide, spaced out and greasy, unruly hair....

Fuck, what a state!

And then he looks at his right arm to see what's wrong. Sees the silver handcuff sparkling around his wrist, the short length of chain, sees the other half clipped firmly to the brass bed spread. It hits him deep in the gut, like the biggest ever, and then some, freight train.... he is at Carrie's house. All those hallucinations from last night are not hallucinations at all; they are fucking memories! Of what he did.... with her!

Fucking hell!

He looks back at himself in the mirror, squashing down an alarming gush of disbelief that she really fucked him in this hobo state and then he nods, allows the smile, confident, conceited to curl the corner of his mouth. Yes, she fucking did!

And now she's chained him up again. He yanks the cuffs angrily. What the fuck? He thinks he can remember promising her, if it did all actually happen last night - he is still having difficulty getting past that, that he wouldn't run away again. How fucking dare she not take his word for it!

He leans back, pressing his head into the pillows, breathing slowly, trying to work it all out, trying to remember. Just his fucking luck, he fucks the girl of his dreams and he can't fucking remember half of it, but more is coming back now, along with his smug little smile too.

Well, he can't lay here and just wait for her to come back, that doesn’t make sense, not to him. But what the hell can he do? He looks at the shambolic figure in the mirror, knows he's gonna need help with this but who? He sees his mobile phone on the other side of the bed, if he could only reach it. Slowly, like waking from a long, deep sleep, which in effect is what he’s done, his mind begins to plan and that smile just starts to get brighter!

 

It was a tough day at work, and then picking up Franny from day care to ferry her on to ballet, Carrie feels like she could sleep for a week. However, unbidden, all through the day, a satisfied feeling has settled over her whenever she relaxes, a feeling of accomplishment. They have finally done it, and, even considering his washed out state, and his fucking hair (which had been nowhere near washed for far too long), 'it' surpassed her expectations.

After they went to bed and did it some more, only more gently, he had, not surprisingly considering his lack of physical robustness, collapsed boneless into a sleep. She had lain in the bed and watched him for a long time, her mind remembering the dark days of the hospital, of what she very nearly did, and as she pondered, old fears had chased her shiny serenity away. The handcuffing to the bed idea had come, only when she had managed to convince herself that he would run again, that he could do nothing else but lose his nerve and run, and she was not going to allow that to happen.

Carrie opens the big front door to her apartment, glancing at her watch, she sees she's got a full fifty minutes before she has to pick Franny up again. Face beaming, she climbs the stairs, bursts into the bedroom, expecting snark and attitude and is completely surprised by what she sees instead.......nothing. Nothing except an empty set of handcuffs dangling listlessly from the bed post.

"What the fuck?" she thunders. "Quinn? Quinn? QUINN."

A quick reconnoitre of the other upstairs rooms shows no human presence. She hurries back down the stairs, consternation growing until she opens the front room door.

He's sitting there, cool as a fucking black ops assassin. Clean, neatly and trendily dressed in expensive clothes and he's actually fucking smiling, sipping on a glass of chilled, Domaine Anderson 2012 Chardonnay. As her taste buds explode in anticipation, she notes the rest of the bottle plus another empty glass on the new coffee table in front of him.

"Hey," he says simply.

"You cut your hair," she says. Somehow he has and its fucking top rank come-to-bed perfect and she longs to run her fingers through it.

He nods. For a second she sees his confidence waivers, he looks a touch uncomfortable, almost shy. "I thought I ought to make an effort," he mumbles, as the runner in him seeks to take control and flee far away, but as quickly as it comes, it goes. He rallies and is suddenly assured and full of swagger once more, regarding her meticulously.

Under his appreciative gaze, she feels something deep inside her sigh and a warm feeling oozes up into every single pore. She looks at him and is suddenly totally in love, overcome by tenderness, wanting him immediately. He feels it too, because he discards the wine, stands up, moves towards her with graceful, fluid cat-like movements, the horror of his history falls away and he is the man he once was, as he takes her hand, leads her to the bedroom.

Once there he gently pushes her on to the bed, and suddenly they are all over each other again, hands, tongues, searching, discovering anew. She closes her eyes, losing herself in the building momentum. He kisses her hard and she feels her swoon beginning deep inside and rippling outwards. He forces her back and her expectation grows, as her whole body waits, hot, impatient, desperate. He lifts her hands above her head, bending to suckle on her nipples and she feels the thrill of it all... .building, aching, swirling, glorious.... and then the peaceful ardour is broken by a surprisingly loud snap. He stops, withdraws....

She opens her eyes, seeks to follow him, and is held where she is. She looks up, sees her small wrist, captured in the hand cuff, shackled to the bed.

"Quinn!"

He's standing at the bottom of the bed regarding her, eyebrows high, face complacently smug. "Haven't we been here before?" he smirks.

"Fucking let me go!" She rattles the cuffs desperately.

"No," he replies. Clearly enjoying this and more alive than she has seen him in a long while.

"C'mon Quinn," she tries her negotiation skills. "I let you go."

"No, you didn't."

"Well I let you get out."

"I escaped. I'm fucking black ops!"

"And I'm not, so let me out, please?"

"No."

"Fucking hell, Quinn."

There's a ring of the doorbell. Carrie throws a glance that is both inquisitive and desperate. "Who?" she asks.

Quinn smiles enigmatically and leaves.

"Don't leave me like this!" she shouts. "I mean it, Quinn!"

She hears the door open. A familiar voice......fucking Max. He enters with Quinn behind him.

"Max, let me out!" she demands.

"Hi, Carrie." Max manages sheepish, embarrassed and unsurprised all at the very same time.

"I told you, I could," Quinn says, triumphant and sure of himself. "So delete your fucking photo now."

Despite her predicament, Carrie's ears pick up, sensing an opportunity. "What?" she asks, sitting forward on the bed, reminded of her captivity by the sharp pain in her wrists when she moves too far.

Max smiles. "We had a bet." He glances across at Quinn whose cockiness seems to be leaking away with chagrin taking its place. He doesn't stop Max though, so Max goes on, warming to the story. "Quinn phoned me, asked me to come and get him out of a sticky situation."

"Oh, he did, did he?" Suddenly Carrie doesn't feel quite so vulnerable, quite so vanquished.

Max nods. "When I got here, I took a photo of him cuffed to the bed." Quinn growls with all the gathered threat of thunder in a summer sky, as Max continues, "Virgil taught me, document everything; you never know the value of a photo! Anyway, not surprisingly he wasn't very happy about it."

"And so the bet was?" Carrie rolls her eyes at Quinn who is prowling in the background like an annoyed panther, no sign of his conceited smile anymore. Instead his eyes are flashing wildly and the hint of panic hangs over him. "If he could get you in the same situation, I would not do what I planned to with the photo of him but with the one of you."

"That was a pretty stupid bet wasn't it?" Carrie smiles sweetly. "Knowing which one of us you are likely to listen to. As a matter of interest what were you going to do with the photo?"

Max gulps, not quite knowing where to look. "Friend of mine is picture editor of Spies Monthly, he's always looking for a good cover story!"

Carrie can't restrain the guffaw that escapes her. "And let's not come between a journalist and the best scoop of his career," she beams.

"Carrie!" Quinn steps forward vulnerable, his tone threatening as he feels his plan unravel.

"No, it's OK," she continues, all martyred victim. "I know which photo will make better copy and I'm thoroughly prepared to forego my chance of stardom." She winks at Max, "He's fucking black ops you know!"

"Really, Carrie really? He made a deal with me." Quinn presses.

Her smile is broad, beautiful and supremely confident. 

"I won't let you out then!" Quinn, suddenly pale, says, petulant as a naughty schoolboy.

"I don't care," Carrie retorts. "This is so worth it! Max, could you get Franny back from ballet lesson? Looks like I'm gonna be tied up here for a while."

Max looks relieved to be leaving especially as Quinn is glowering at him with a look that is pure assassin.

Carrie chuckles. "I've got a feeling this is going to be a long night. Be a doll, Quinn and go get the Chardonnay up here."

He looks at her as if he can't believe what has just happened, or maybe it's because nobody ever called him 'doll' before. She thinks he's going to argue but he sighs, long and hard and shakes his head.

"You look fucking hot," he discloses when he returns with the wine, sits on the bed next to her.

"So do you," she replies hoarsely as she runs her free hand through the clean, glorious waves of sheer sexiness on his head. "I'm glad hobo Quinn is history!"


End file.
